Three years ago, nine brave men started Nine Rocks Games studio after several years of working on the console version of DayZ and other projects as a part of Bohemia interactive. NRG joined an ever-growing family of THQ Nordic studios, and the rest is history, as usually said. But not in our case. Nine Rocks Games is not looking back but into the future.
History is as essential as the future for Nine Rocks Games, though. We are using our vast game dev experience and experience with the hunting game genre to make Way of the Hunter the best game for our audience possible. Some of the nine "rocks" men (our CEO and lead VFX artist, to be precise) had worked together for over 30 years since 1993. In 1996 they started Cauldron studio in Bratislava, Slovakia, and others joined them on the way, so they are all veterans.
We won't bore you with details, so please check out the still-live Cauldron website. You'll get a picture of our game development experience. Throughout all these years, Cauldron people put out more than 19 titles for any platform you can imagine. We were doing work-for-hire projects and many original projects like FPS Chaser, celebrating 20 years this year. This game was also one of the projects for which we used our in-house Cloak NT engine. And then there is a techno-fantasy Spellcross - it was the first game from former Czecho-Slovakia to be distributed worldwide. Some people working on these games several decades ago are still part of the Nine Rocks Games.
When you look at Cauldron's portfolio, you can see many hunting games like Cabela's Big Game Hunter games or Dangerous Hunts games. These were very successful titles. That's why the hunting game was an obvious choice for the first game made under the THQN umbrella. But we wanted to do it differently, emphasizing ethical hunting, realistic animal depiction, and hunter's habits. We were successful based on sales, media, and user reviews. Because of this, we still need to grow the studio, but very carefully. We've strengthened our QA, Design, and Gameplay Engineering team, but this should be it for now.
Nine Rocks Games achieved a lot during just three years of its existence. We released Way of the Hunter on all major platforms, including PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. We've supplied our community and players with updates and patches every two or three weeks and the first big DLC with a new map (Aurora Shores - Alaska).
Nine Rocks Games is currently one of Slovakia's bigger game development studios, but unlimited growth is not needed. We are focusing on the quality of our games, no matter what genre it is. That is why we are expanding our team with the right people at the right time, and we are lucky the interest is high - from experienced game devs to really great newcomers.
Stay with us, enjoy current and future Way of the Hunter content, and try our titles.
Way of the Hunter
PC:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1288320/Way_of_the_Hunter/PS5: https://store.playstation.com/en-cz/product/EP4389-PPSA05732_00-WAYOFTHEHUNTER00
Spellcross
Unofficial download: http://www.stare-hry.cz/hry/strategie/spellcross/)
Chaser
Battle Isle: The Andosia War
Soldier of Fortune: Payback
